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The 'reverse' pattern shown has worked perfectly so far, triggering no fewer than three consecutive trades that produced a profit. The first was a conventional long at the green line, followed by a short at the secondary Hidden Pivot (p2) at 4172.70.  The last, an easy winner initiated as a 'mechanical' buy at the green line (x=4071,70), remained 'live' as the week ended. This series of winners strongly implies that December Gold will achieve the 4223.20 target shown. The futures would become a compelling short at that price, assuming you've made some money on the way up and that you know how to limit entry risk to small change. I have one outstanding target at 5020 that was identified here earlier. Its provenance is not nearly as clear as the targets we've been using, however, and that's why I am going to stick with the lesser charts for the foreseeable future. If the current move should impale d=4223.20, that would open up a clear path to at least 4351.30, a tad beneath the old high at 4398; or to 4461.30 if any higher.  (For a detailed discussion of a somewhat bigger picture, see my 13:51 post in the chat room on Saturday.) _____  UPDATE (Oct 29, 11:28 a.m. EDT): While we were waiting, a $10,000 trade dropped neatly into our lap. See the chat room thread from yesterday and this morning for precise details.  _______ UPDATE (Oct 30, 6:50 p.m.): I used a big-picture chart in the chat room last Saturday to lend perspective to a discussion about gold's so-far mild correction. EWT forecasters appear to disagree about where and when the retracement will end. Since then, a lesser chart using Hidden Pivot levels has evolved to suggest the correction could already be over. This interpretation would be strengthened by a pop

Bitcoin is on a buy signal that triggered last Wednesday at 108,278 following the sharp reversal of a fleeting spike. A balky recovery has turned the position moderately profitable, with a paper gain of $2642 so far. However, the rally will need to tack on another $2,000 to reach the red line (p=113,039), where partial profit-taking on half the position (four round lots initially, as is customary) would become obligatory.  Risk management thereafter would be predicated on a 122,562 target, but a 103,515 stop-loss will remain in force until then. _______ UPDATE (Oct 26, 5:41 p.m. EDT):  Ka-ching! Anyone who followed my simple instructions from last Wednesday could have exited on today's leap to 113,473 for a profit of $4076.  The secondary Hidden Pivot at 117,801 is the next logical objective, but I am not recommending a new position until I've heard from subscribers who caught the current move. 

Friday's short-squeeze bounce came from within a hair of the 'secondary' (p2) Hidden Pivot of the pattern shown. The rally subsequently signaled a short sale when it hit the green line (x=6700.19).  The trade was do-able only if you used a reverse-pattern trigger to limit risk. I'm not going to recommend it because the futures are already starting to feel the magnetic pull of last week's high, 6766.75. However, we can still record a paper-trade and monitor it closely to determine whether bulls or bears are in charge at the moment. If the latter, the short should work, eventually falling to D=6500.00 despite the fright-mask intensity of Friday's rebound.

The bull market begun in May continues to make slow progress as it head-butts resistance at the 91.24 midpoint Hidden Pivot shown. Because bulls have pushed past it slightly, any swoon to the green line would be a 'mechanical' buy. Such weakness would equate to a perhaps fleeting spike in long-term interest rates, which, although unlikely, is not inconceivable. The rally in Treasurys is ironic because Trump's obsession with stimulus has put a great deal of pressure on U.S. debt. However, it is the President's bold leadership that has attracted bond buyers from around the world, reducing pressure on the Fed to mop up paper for which there might otherwise be weak demand. It is a big change from Biden, a walking corpse whose style of governing was enough to give investors in the U.S. and abroad the dry heaves.  For your information, a rally to the 94.02 target would equate to a fall in long-term rates from a current 4.60 % to 4.39%. Although that's not enough to shift re-fis into second gear, it certainly would be a positive for the U.S. economy.

If you followed the simple instruction I put out Thursday night, which flouted a ballistic rally, you got short using a 94.50-point trigger interval when the futures fell to x=4297.60. Thereafter, you would have covered half the position at 4203.10 on the subsequent decline to just beneath that Hidden Pivot midpoint support. The theoretical gain would have been $9450, enough to provide a substantial cushion to help you manage the remaining risk.  The fully-corrected target is D=4014.30, which, if achieved, would yield an additional profit of $18,890, for a total gain of  $28,340. However, if the bull market in gold is still intact, the futures should bounce to new highs from p=4203.10 rather than continue lower. Alternatively, they could fall to p2=4108.70 before reversing, so you should be alert to this possibility if you are still short.  Most immediately, I'll suggest an 'impulsive' stop-loss at 4332.30, just above a minor peak created Friday on the way down. _______ UPDATE (Oct 21, 10:07 p.m.): Gold was overdue for a brutal correction, so no one should have been surprised by this one.  My hunch is that it is already over.  I posted a 4020.20 retracement target in the chat room this morning when the futures were up around 4200.00. They subsequently dove to a 4021.20 bottom that came within $1.00 (!) of my target. Anyone who used my Hidden Pivot support to get long could have racked up a same-day profit of as much as $11,300 per contract, since the bounce has reached 4133.80 so far. Gold is currently trading for 4130.80, having given up little of the rebound. Let's see if it has bottomed.

Nasty relapses usually improve our odds of making a profit when we do a 'mechanical' buy, but in this instance the gap-down plunge was too strong for me to suggest putting a bid at the green line (or slightly below it, as was possible at the close on Friday). It is not the punitive behavior of the selling per se that has put me off, but rather the protracted A-B leg that amounts to just a weak impulse leg.  We'll watch from the sidelines for now, but please note that the D target at 118.08 will remain viable until such time as C=98.44 is exceeded. ______ UPDATE (Oct 22, 1:16 a.m.): Even if the midpoint support at 92.38 shown here does not turn GDXJ toward new highs, it will still be worth bottom-fishing with an rABC trigger of minute degree. As always, a decisive penetration of the Hidden Pivot support on first contact would be bearish. That could also set up a 'mechanical' short eventually at the green line. Whatever happens, Mr Market -- known elsewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy as 'Sid' -- is unlikely to fool this pattern.  

The aging bull market smells like it's in a topping process, although it could take a vicious head-fake or two to new highs to set the hook. Last week, I raised the possibility that shares had entered a vortex similar to the one that led to the 1929 Crash. A key similarity is that investors have begun to freak out over tariff news they'd grown accustomed to shrugging off.  Is it possible the reason for the stock market's hysterical behavior lies elsewhere? The mainstream media and its vaunted experts used China's 'rare-earths' threat ten days ago to explain why shares plummeted that Friday. However, when the market began to recover Sunday evening, they changed their tune with sheepish second-day stories about how rare-earth minerals turn out to be not so rare after all. It is the breathtaking stupidity and incompetence of journalists who invent the news that has caused me to tune out their blather and focus solely on charts when I forecast market trends. As far as I've observed over 50 years, price movement is caused mainly by arcane cyclical forces that color our perceptions of news. Is it not, therefore, reasonable to infer that the stock market's ups and downs create the headlines, not, as is almost universally believed, the other way around? A Bitcoin 'Tell'   Far more interesting to me these days than the stock market's headless-chicken act is the spectacular bull market in gold.  Prices have risen by 31% in the last two months, impaling Hidden Pivot targets as though they were as mushy as journalists' brains. Until recently, I'd assumed quotes were rising so steeply because gold, traditionally a haven in times of uncertainty, had glimpsed some horrible economic catastrophe ahead. However, there is a second possibility -- that gold is caught up in the

A short squeeze on Silver in the London market has pushed quotes easily past a Hidden Pivot target at 50.955 that had seemed ambitious less than a week ago. This has put the December contract on course for additional gains up to D=55.185 over the near term.  Judging from the way buyers fist-pumped through the midpoint 'hidden' resistance at 50.943, they are no worse than an 80% shot to achieve D sometime soon. In the somewhat unlikely event of a felicitous swoon over the next 3-5 days, belated buyers should position themselves with a 'mechanical' bid at x=48.820, stop 46.695. ______ UPDATE (Oct 14, 10:35 a.m.): The fresh tout I put out last night at 10:20 p.m. (see above), nailed a quick, easy profit of $10,600 per contract. This graph shows how December Silver swooned overnight to a low at 48.75 that lay within 0.14% of the 'mechanical' bid I'd suggested. This means you would have endured no more than $350 of adversity to capture a gain of $10,600 (or an additional $3,300, for a total of $14,200, if you held out for the actual, overnight high at 51.160 that occurred somewhat above the red line). The 55.185 rally target remains valid as a minimum upside objective for the next two weeks.

I've put MSFT at the top of the list because it is about to provide the clearest test of whether a bear market has in fact begun.  No matter how bearish one's outlook is for the stock market following Friday's stunning reversal, MSFT would trigger an irresistible 'mechanical' buy signal if it touches the green line (x=506.06), as seems likely. That doesn't necessarily mean the implied bounce will achieve d=547.12, effectively reviving the bull market. More likely in my estimation is that a weak bounce will carries no higher than p=519.75, the midpoint Hidden Pivot. Whatever happens, the second most valuable company in the world cannot but reveal the health of the bull market, or lack thereof.